


Mint

by bree_black



Category: White Collar
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mistletoe, Thoughts of infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bree_black/pseuds/bree_black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Candy canes in the office change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mint

The first candy canes show up in late November, brought in to the office by some overeager probie looking to impress his colleagues. They’re just ordinary candy canes, white with red stripes and smelling like peppermint even through the wrappers, but Neal is drawn to them like he’s usually drawn to shiny, expensive objects. He makes a beeline across the office in the middle of a case update, and returns to Peter’s desk a few minutes later, carrying three.

“You want one?” Neal asks, carefully unwrapping the first from the straight end, while holding the hooked end between two fingers.

“No, thanks,” Peter says. He’s never been a fan of candy canes; they get everything sticky, and he associates the taste of mint with utilitarian function. Mint is for freshening your breath, not eating for fun.

His opinion changes a little when he looks up from his computer screen, and Neal is sucking on his candy cane. His lips are shiny and wet, the cane pressed against his cheek. Neal’s eyes close briefly, like he’s savouring the taste. He pushes the cane an inch further into his mouth, then pulls it out with an obscene popping noise.

“You sure you don’t want one?” Neal asks, holding out his candy cane - fresh out of his mouth - as if offering it to Peter.

“I’m good,” Peter says, but he’s really really not.

 

There are all different flavours of candy cane, Peter discovers. Not just peppermint and spearmint, but also blueberry, bubble gum, root beer, orange crush. It seems to be Neal’s goal to try every kind of candy cane ever imagined by man. Peter learns to tell when Neal’s nearby by picking up some kind of sugar-sweet scent in the air.

It becomes a kind of game, keeping track of Neal’s fetish, connecting the smell on Neal’s breath when he leans over Peter’s shoulder with the coloured sticks constantly in his hand, watching the way they stain his lips, his tongue, bright colours.

It’s not a healthy game. Peter knows because he so often has to press the heel of his hand against his painfully hard cock under his desk after Neal leaves, because he spends so much time splashing cool water on his face, and staring at himself in the bathroom mirror.

This has never happened to Peter before.

He’s seen it happen to other guys on the job, seen it drive otherwise good men to do terrible things, seen it tear apart whole families after a single, stupid mistake. But Peter’s had his fair share of attractive co-workers, both female and male, and he’s never felt that tug. Until Neal and his fucking candy canes.

 

They’re walking down the street mid-December, and for once Peter feels good about things. They’re working on an interesting case and Neal is animated, talking with his hands. For once, there’s nothing in his mouth, and that makes things much easier for Peter.

“I think the wife did it,” Neal says, confident as always.

“No way,” Peter replies, grateful for this easy, uncomplicated argument. “They’d been married twenty years. She loved him. I don’t care how much his life insurance policy was worth, some things you just can’t put a price on.”

Neal stops dead in his tracks, and Peter has to take a few steps back to stand beside him by the time he notices. “Everything has its price, Peter,” Neal says, moving again, strolling along the street like it’s no big deal. “Everyone can be bought.”

“You’re a cynic, and I don’t think that’s true,” Peter says, irrationally frustrated by Neal’s usual flippancy.

“You can have anything you want as long as you can afford the cost,” Neal says, lengthening his stride so that he’s a step ahead of Peter. “Money, sex, silence.”

Peter’s stomach leaps and sinks at the same time, and it makes him want to throw up. “This case has nothing to do with sex,” he says, gritting his teeth against his nausea. “The man was 85 years old when he died.”

“Right,” Neal says, like he’d just forgotten. He drops a few dollar bills in the red donation bucket of a man dressed as Santa, and comes away with a miniature red, green and white candy cane, face delighted. He unwraps it quickly, and pops the whole thing in his mouth at once.

 

Peter analyzes that conversation, back at the office, of course. He’s always overanalyzed his conversations with Neal, an old habit from his years chasing him down. Elizabeth calls him paranoid for it, but Peter knows there’s something to it this time, that what should have been a routine work discussion had come out sounding distinctly like an _offer_. If it had been anyone but Neal, Peter might think it had been accidental, but he knows Neal never makes that kind of mistake...unless he’s working an angle.

Peter has been waiting for Neal to try to con him, of course. He’d be a pretty bad cop it he wasn’t constantly guarding against that possibility. It’s just that he’d always thought the difficulty was going to be recognizing the con, that Neal was going to stab him in the back when he least expected it.

Turns out the con is right in front of him, was in fact the oldest and simplest trick in the book. Peter has no trouble whatsoever spotting it, the difficulty is that even as he sees it coming, he _wants_ to fall for it.

“Shit,” Peter says, letting his head fall forward onto his desk.

“Everything okay?” Neal says from the doorway. He hadn’t bothered to knock, of course. His full lips are wrapped around the...shaft... of a candy cane, and are stained blue. Blueberry, or possibly blue raspberry.

“Yes,” Peter says, shaking his head to clear it. “Just getting a bit fed up with this case.”

Neal drops gracefully into a rolling chair, then wheels himself around to Peter’s side of the desk. He leans close to Peter, making a show of studying the file in front of them both. This isn’t subtle; Neal isn’t even really trying to hide what he’s after. “Anything I can do to help?” Neal says, around the candy still in his mouth. His breath is hot against Peter’s cheek.

Blueberry, the candy cane definitely smells like blueberry. “Not at the moment,” Peter says.

 

Elizabeth can’t make it to the office Christmas party because it’s the same night as the mayor’s, the highest profile account she’s ever landed. Peter doesn’t blame her for wanting to make sure everything goes off without a hitch, but he does miss her. Especially when Neal corners him in an empty hallway, on his way back from the bathroom.

“Hey,” Neal says, casual. There’s a candy cane in the corner of his mouth, red and white, Traditional. The hooked end is nearly touching his lips; he’s been working on it a long time. Neal never bites his candy canes.

“Hey,” Peter answers, trying to match Neal’s tone. “What’s up?”

Neal grins. “Mistletoe,” he says, looking skyward.

Peter looks up, and there is, in fact, a clump of green mistletoe wedged between two of the ceiling panels. “Oh,” he says. This is it, then.

“So,” Neal says, shifting from foot to foot, as if he’s nervous. As if he hasn’t manufactured this moment, maybe even hung the mistletoe himself.

“What’s your price?” Peter blurts out. “You say everyone has one, so what’s yours?”

Neal removes the slick candy cane from his mouth, the red stripes faded to pink where he’s been sucking on it. He looks pensive for a moment, and Peter wonders whether he’s really going to do it, going to ask Peter to let him outside of his radius, or look the other way on a bank robbery, or find him an expertly forged passport. He doesn’t know whether he’s more excited by what he might get in exchange, or by the prospect of finally knowing what Neal Caffrey wants from him.

But instead of his guarded negotiation face, Neal wears an expression Peter’s never seen before, something soft and vulnerable and desperate. “Special holiday offer,” he says, smiling weakly. “I’m absolutely free, just for you.”

For a moment, it blindsides him, the idea that Neal might just want _him_ , not want something _from_ him. Neal looks scared, insecure in a way Peter hadn’t even thought he was capable of being, and it looks so very very _real_. Peter wants to believe him; he thinks he’s never wanted anything more in his life.

But then his gaze falls on the candy cane stub Neal’s still holding. Peter remembers that mint isn’t only for freshening breath, the smell can be restorative, bracing, like smelling salts. Used to wake people up.

He bites the inside of his cheek and reminds himself who he’s talking to. Neal must’ve saved this expression, kept it hidden away to use at just the right moment, the ace up his sleeve. This was just a very long con.

“Merry Christmas, Neal,” Peter says. Stepping out from under the mistletoe is a challenge, like there’s truth to the myth about being frozen there without a kiss. He turns his back to Neal, so he doesn’t need to see that expression.

Peter walks down the hall, back towards the party proper. He will take his two days off for Christmas - spend them with his wife - and by the time he comes back the holiday will be over, the candy canes will be gone, and everything will go back to normal.

But Peter can’t help looking back over his shoulder, at Neal still standing under the mistletoe, expression unreadable at this distance. His hand is at his mouth, he must still be sucking on that same dwindling candy, resisting the urge to bite down. As much as he hopes this whole mess will disappear with the candy canes, Peter knows just how patient Neal can be.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 15 of the 2011 holiday advent calendar at whitecollarfic.


End file.
